JESSICA LANGE (Martha Baring) is a six-time Academy Award®
nominated actress who has built her distinguished career on portraying
strong and independent women. Raised in Minnesota, she later moved
to New York City, where she worked as a model and studied acting.
Her modeling led her to be cast in her first film, King Kong.
Two years later, she played the Angel of Death in Bob Fosse's
All That Jazz, followed by her first comedic role in How
to Beat the High Cost of Living.

Lange received critical praise for her performance as Cora in
Bob Rafelson's remake of the classic The Postman Always Rings
Twice, opposite Jack Nicholson, and earned her first Academy
Award® nomination for her next film, Frances. That
film segued almost immediately into work on Tootsie, for
which she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar® in 1983.
This marked the first time in 25 years that an actor had been
nominated for two Oscar®s in the same year. She went on to
both produce and star in Country, followed by her portrayal
of country western legend Patsy Cline in Sweet Dreams.
She received Best Actress nominations for both of these roles.

Opposite Sissy Spacek and Diane Keaton, Lange next starred in
Crimes of the Heart, which was followed by Far North,
written and directed by Sam Shepard, and Taylor Hackford's Everybody's
All-American opposite Dennis Quaid. She went on to star in
Men Don't Leave and Costa-Gavras' Music Box, which
earned her a fifth Academy Award® nomination. Soon after,
she starred in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear opposite Robert
De Niro and Nick Nolte. Lange's next projects were Paramount Pictures'
Losing Isaiah opposite Halle Berry and the MGM epic Rob
Roy opposite Liam Neeson.

Lange had an exceptional year in 1995, when she won the Best Actress
honor at both the Academy Award®s and the Golden Globes for
her performance in Orion Pictures' Blue Sky.

Lange made her Broadway debut in 1992 as Blanche Dubois in Gregory
Mosher's revival of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named
Desire." She reprised her role as Blanche in the London run
of the production in 1996. Lange appeared again in the role in
the CBS "Playhouse '90s" presentation of "A Streetcar
Named Desire" opposite Alec Baldwin.

Lange will next be seen in the title role in Cousin Bette,
due out this summer. She was most recently seen, along with Michelle
Pfeiffer and Jennifer Jason Leigh, in the screen version of Jane
Smiley's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Thousand Acres,
for which she was honored with a Golden Globe Award nomination
for Best Actress.